In Partnership with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Why So Early?

Learning to read is a process much like learning to speak or learning to walk. The process begins at birth. Children associate sounds with emotions. They must learn how a book works – you read left to right and you turn pages. They associate pictures with words. These are all steps along the way to learning to read. Perhaps even more importantly, they also learn to love to read. Sitting in a loved one’s lap, all warm and cozy, develops a powerful association between reading and love. These are pleasurable experiences and as such they prompt those words we love to hear, “Read it again, Mommy!”

Take a look at these statistics:

Children develop much of their capacity to learn in the first three years of life, when their brains grow to 90% of their eventual adult weight. (1998 Karoly study.)

Just as a child develops language skills long before being able to speak, the child also develops literacy skills long before being able to read. (National Research Council.)

To immerse a child in a literacy environment can be a stronger predictor of literacy and academic achievement than family income. The more words a child hears, the larger the child’s vocabulary, and the larger the child’s vocabulary the more likely the child will be a proficient reader. (Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library)